The Best Lyric Vids of the Week: Volume XXXV

Trapped in two digital worlds, assaulted by rendered text, handwritten moments of childhood Ring Pop zen, GQ photo editor porn and more, as we strut into the 35th week of the year’s best lyric vids, proving once more that there has been no better time to be a letter, all you words looking to get into the viral music biz.

Glossing up her open-chested Detroit brashness, Azealia Banks protege Angel Haze slathers her first pop-hued single with this 3-D eye within the inner-workings of a computer. Some ‘puters party harder than others. Haze’s digs kaleidoscopic moments of text and soft color brushes. We do too:

NKOTB, bitch
All these bitches is, has beens
I CPR’d the game
And now all these bitches is gasping
I be on that other, nigga don’t get me a

Following fellow B-Room(October 1) single, “The Truth,” [LISTEN] Philly 60s pop nerds kick the beat up a notch and aptly let more B-roll footage roll from a bygone era in which an old amusement park plays host to a tale about finding “freedom from love.” There are shots of a ride, in which people parachute from a tower, trumpeting both the ideal metaphor and post-war idiocy:

Freedom from love
Freedom from the heartache
I never really had a broken heart
You don’t believe me, just look at my chest

Woozy NoCal hip-hop through the original hipster filter of G-Eazy, turning the ultimate Frenchie film cliche into porn for GQ photo editors. Though “Been On” and its equally played-out I’m-the-shit-because-blank lyrics scroll out like captions, we should make note that this is not an official lyric video from G-Eazy, but rathe a contribution from YouTube scouts, MusicDaily. Still doesn’t take the stink out of the cheese:

Rather risk it all than play it safe
You like to sprinkle salt and player hate
My team can eat off shareplate
I had the black on black, I swear you’re late

Perhaps rekindling a silly Twitter feud with previously mentioned protege, Angel Haze, we see New York’s finest hip-hop firecracker team up with Pharrell to both riff on the digital theme haze dropped with “Echelon (It’s My Way),” and end with a cryptic image of Twitter birds painted red. At face value, though, the angular rendering does make us feel like we’re trapped inside an ATM trying to snag some loot. Or jamming the damn thing. So mission accomplished, team Banks:

That song sings- freaky deeky, whistle-wetter, slip that slit (that thong thing)
Hyphy-cheeky-cheddar-checker get her own cheese

Not that the first-wave emo hearts ever got their edge back post-“At Your Funeral,” [LISTEN] but despite its crimson, handwritten charm, this new single, with its twee Ring Pop metaphors and Jimmy Eat World panache is an odd slice of chincy carpe diem coming from a songwriter in his mid-30s. But whatever, young at heart, forever and ever:

Born on opposite coasts, for the two of us both
Knowing in 20 years, we would not be alone
Might have mades us a pair of zen-like two-year-olds
With a couple of Ring Pops, no need to propose

About Gavin Paul

Gavin Paul is SONGLYRICS' Editor-in-Chief. Chicago-bred, New York-sculpted, his words and ideas have appeared in publications ranging from Spin and Rolling Stone to The Chicago Sun-Times and Arborist News.